Disclaimer: body content copied from elsewhere

There are many games made in Europe that really worth your time. Yes, unfortunately if you buy them from Steam or other stores besides GOG, a significant cut will go to these market monopolists. But the rest will hopefully fund European studios.

Here is a list of the European games I have played in the last five years or so and the country where studio is mostly based Feel free to add more!

Open world and RPGs

  • Cyberpunk 2077 (Poland) I have been playing games since the Commodore 64. I sincerely believe this to be one of the best games ever made. If you like sci-fi, if you like Cyberpunk and have not yet played this masterpiece, you need to buy it now. The gameplay, the story will change you. Close reddit and go buy it on GOG! Or… you can choose to play the American Starfield, with the americanicased United Colonies vs american Libertarian Colonies in space, with no universal healthcare and people living underground on a paradise world (true story).

  • Baldur’s Gate 3 (Belgium) This game also needs no introduction. One of the best RPGs ever made. You can do almost everything you can think of, romance everyone. The voice acting is top notch, the combat is fun and you can even play it in couch co-op in split screen. I played it a second time with my partner in this way.

  • Kingdom Come Deliverance 1 and 2 (Czech Republic) I have yet to play the 2nd one. The first KCD was a fresh take on the open-world RPG genre, with one set in medieval times in Bohemia. No dragons, no magic. Just a bit of alchemy. The combat system was a bit difficult to get adjusted to, but it’s definitely worth a lot of your time! Will buy the 2nd one as soon as I finish a few other titles through my backlog. I think many more studios should do “historical RPGs.” It’s truly a shame (as an Italian) that there are NO open-world RPGs set in the times of the Roman Empire. A game of the quality of KCD would be like a fountain of gold.

  • Disco Elysium (Estonia) This is a bit older, from 2019 but it’s truly a masterpiece. It’s a surreal RPG with basically no combat and it is entirely focused on the narrative aspects. A lot of choices, a lot of reading, and the possibility to build 0.00001% of communism! There is a bit of controversy regarding the studio, however. From what I have gathered from the wikipedia article, the IP is no longer owned by the original authors, who have launched a new studio and are working on a spiritual successor to DE.

Strategy and Tactics

  • Paradox Games (Sweden) There are just too many. If you like staring at maps (who doesn’t?) you only need to pick the genre you like the most. Medieval times? Crusader Kings. WW2? Hearts of Iron 4. Modern period? Victoria 3. Space? Stellaris. Unfortunately the DLC model of Paradox is a bit infamous but these games have kept me entertained for thousands of hours combined.

  • Endless * games (France) are “competitors” to Paradox games. There’s Endless Space for turn-based 4x like Civilization, Endless Legend is a fantasy civilization, Humankind is a direct competitor to Civilization, Endless Dungeon is a roguelike. I heartily recommend all of them. They are working on Endless Legend 2 I think and there’s a lot of anticipation around it.

  • Ixion (France) is a sort of city builder based in space, where you need to build up sectors of a travelling spaceship. I won’t spoil it too much, I liked the story. It’s a grim take on the peril of tech billionaire too. Music is awesome.

  • Other older tactical / simulation game. Surviving Mars (2018, Bulgaria) is a city builder set on Mars. Very captivating and realistic. The game is old now and I think it contains some positive references to Elon, from the before times. Frostpunk 1 & 2 (Poland) lets you manage a colony of survivors in a world that entered an ice age. I haven’t played the 2nd one yet but the first was really worht it. The city must survive! Cities Skylines 1&2 (Finland) are the de facto genre standards for successors of Sim City

Action & Adventure games

  • Helldivers 2 (Sweden). I haven’t played this one personally, but there’s a huge following around it. Everybody by now should now that is extremely important to defend democracy! Not many might know that it is made in Europe.

  • Alan Wake series (Finland). The last AW2 was truly a remarkable survival-horror game. If you like the genre and haven’t played you need to catch up. Plus you can’t say you have lived until you have seen this.

  • Hitman series (Denmark). This also needs no introductions. It’s the one of the best game in the stealth genre. The story is also well developed and there are ways to make your target suffer a fatal accident that you have never thought of.

  • Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Sweden). Surprisingly, this game was made in Sweden (distributed by Bethesda Softworks). It’s a great Indiana Jones story. I liked the Vatican part a lot but the game has been overall very entertaining. I’d love to see a remake of the Fate of Atlantis. Plus, this game has the best 3D rendition of an Italian cornetto. I was salivating when I saw it!

Indie games

  • Observation (Scotland) is a classic sci-fi story about a space station where something has gone wrong. It’s a “walking” (or zero-g walking at least) simulator, but the story is captivating.

  • Observer (Poland) is a sci-fi horror game set in a cyberpunkish world. The protagonist is played by the late Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner). My partner loved it. Other great games from this studio are The Medium, Layers of Fear, and the remake of Silent Hills 2.

  • Silicon Dreams (Austria), this is truly a very obscure game but as a lover all things Cyberpunk, I really liked it. It’s a narrative game, a sort of visual novel, where you have to interrogate androids who are accused of being deviants. You’ll need to decide whether to dismiss the charges or sentence them to recycling. It’s basically a cyberpunk version of Papers, Please, but a lot more developed in terms of narrative.

  • Suzerain (Germany), is another narrative based adventure game. You play the role of a politician in a fictional country that rises to power. Through your actions you will need to decide what kind of country it will become.

  • The Invincible (Poland). I just finished this last night. It’s a sci-fi story that serves as a prequel to Stanislaw Lev’s novel of the same name. It’s a short game, but very atmospheric and will offer you a great sci-fi story on another planet.

I’m also working on an indie-game, it’s called Sine Fine. It’s a space exploration game set after humanity’s extinction, where you play the role of an AI supercomputer tasked with the mission of finding a new habitable planet by sending out probes at relativistic sublight speeds in a desolate and seemingly empty galaxy. If you like hard sci-fi be sure to keep an eye out for it. Steam page will come soon!

Thanks for having read so far and feel free to add more games!

  • Liljekonvalj@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    Minecraft sold to Microsoft. Microsoft is American… Speaking of Microsoft, does anybody know how to play these games on Linux, Ubuntu? Looking to do the switch.

    • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
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      Running games on Linux:
      Using the Heroic Game Launcher you can install GOG/Epic Games games with a simple click, Steam works pretty much the same in Linux as in Windows today.
      There’s also Lutris that’s great for running local windows installers (downloaded game installers from GOG f.e.). I used Lutris when my wife needed to install the EA App to run Sims 4 as a usage example.

      PLEASE NOTE
      The exception is some games actively blocking non-windows (Fortnite) and others using Anti cheats that requires Windows to work.

      Gaming on Linux links
      Where I usually check if a game runs properly on Linux - https://www.protondb.com/
      A site that lists games that doesn’t work due to anticheat - https://areweanticheatyet.com/
      Game launchers for other storefronts than Steam:
      https://lutris.net/
      https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

      Linux DE and Distros
      If you want a desktop environment that is similar to Windows as default and uses the latest graphics protocols in Wayland and so on then look into KDE. As a bonus KDE is developed by a non profit based in Germany.
      OpenSUSE is a distro developed by a german company that uses KDE as default - https://get.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/?type=desktop
      Normally I recommend Fedora KDE as a distro but that is developed by Red Hat which in turn is owned by IBM which feels a bit contrary to “Buy European”.

  • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    In general pirating games is fine but it is morally correct to pirate disco elysium. It is not that the IP is no longer owned by the creators but that it was basically stolen by the financier who illegally ousted the creators

    It’s also one of the best games ever made

    • Baguette@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      Its been owned by microsoft for almost a decade, definitely should not be on that list

      • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        I’d also be interested in exactly how much of the profits from helldivers and horizon go to sony, other titles I’m not particularly knowledgeable about. Minecraft is just one that stands out in particular as fully u.s. corpo now

  • Cornballer@feddit.nl
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    9 days ago

    I recently got into No Man’s Sky. It was apparently very underwhelming at launch but after nine years of steady updates it’s actually a great discovery/exploration game. 100+ hours in. Frequently on sale. Made in the UK.

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    9 days ago

    Alright, I’m on record saying that “vote with your wallet” grassroots boycotts are ineffectual and policy action is often more workable, but this one is especially weird because who worked on a game and who sees the profit don’t match.

    Ubisoft is French but it’s a public company. Epic is American and private, but has a lot of Chinese investment. EA is American, but it doesn’t develop there very much. If you buy FIFA, is that an American game? It’s made in Canada and Europe. Battlefield is made in Sweden, but also maybe LA? I guess it depends on the year. Is Baldur’s Gate Belgian? Well, sure. And also Malaysian, Canadian, British, Polish and Spanish. Is Subnautica American? It’s made there, but the company is a subsidiary of Krafton over in Korea.

    I’m not saying don’t favor local product if that’s how the current political landscape makes you feel, but games are super global and it gets complicated quickly once you go past a small truly independent studio working locally, self-publishing and I suppose releasing on GOG.

    • 5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 days ago

      As we’ve seen with the arms industry, it also depends on who made it where. Financial flows are one thing, but skill can’t easily be bought - it matters that there are people at the right place who can execute what they have learnt.

      • MudMan@fedia.io
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        9 days ago

        Hah. Well, I may be less confident there. That’s something that spent a long time doing the rounds across the industry as a reassurance for people in high cost locations, and particulary in North America. I guess it took them a bit too long to realize that Western devs didn’t have a mystical, nature-given skill to make games, just a generation or two of funding to do the thing on an industrial scale so people could gain the right experience.

        I think after The Witcher 3, Wukong, Marvel Rivals and the like they may be starting to notice, though.

        In any case, that’s neither here nor there. the point is if you’re boycotting you’re presumably trying to harm somebody financially in retaliation for something in a way you normaly wouldn’t. I’m saying in gaming specifically every part of that is pretty hard to trace. I’m not doing an audit every time I want to play a game, and I don’t think people should be expected to.

  • frosted_fish@feddit.org
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    9 days ago

    I didn’t see Deep Rock Galactic mentioned yet. It’s from a Swedish developer and publisher. It’s a great loot and shoot multiplayer game with a very friendly community. Right now there is the 7 year anniversary ingame

    • Zess@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Everything under the Coffee Stain umbrella is Nordic I believe. Great developers and publishers.

    • Glytch@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      The amount of support and new free content DRG has gotten over 7 years is astounding. New mission types, weapons, events all for free with the only paid DLC being some really cool looking skins.

      Rock and Stone!

    • sudneo@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      Just in case someone wants to try it, be aware if you suffer of motion sickness, this game might not be for you. It is strictly in first person and I couldn’t play for more than 20m before getting nautea.

      They are also the same publishers of Valheim BTW! Thankfully that is in 3rd person!

  • dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    I don’t see it, but Enshrouded is a FANTASTIC survival builder from German developer, Keen Games.

    Definitely filled the void after Valheim went to shit :(

    • kyle@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      I love Enshrouded, really cool skill system and the fact that you can place such small individual blocks when building is such a game changer!

      (but don’t you dare besmirch my beloved Valheim lol)

      • dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 days ago

        I bought Valheim in March 2021 and got SO much enjoyment out of the game. But the giant mess that is Ashlands and the continued radio silence about future updates is frustrating.

        Playing on a moderately beefy system (i7-9700, RTX 4090) and dropping well below 30fps is unacceptable. They need to optimize the game YESTERDAY. Stop posting about the boardgame (I love boardgames but come on) or best builds that were obviously done with tons of nodding or custom world settings. FIX THE GAME!

        • kyle@lemm.ee
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          9 days ago

          Yeah, it’s my second highest played game ever I think, something like 450 hours.

          Mistlands was actually my most hated expansion, idk why they thought limited visibility + the worst terrain imaginable would be good. I haven’t had issues with frames really, we played with like 4-5 people on our server and had fairly expansive bases, only issues were if you fucked up removing some foundation and half your tower breaks and you cry lol.

          The slow development is awful. Like you’re so close to the final area and it’s been a year or so since Ashlands released.

          Edit: also for the love of Odin can we please have wood not deteriorate in rain, I just want to build a pretty deck.

          • dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 days ago

            I ‘cheated’ for Mistlands by using a mod to expand visibility. Still misty, but not incredibly frustrating.

            The insane spawn rate and wild FPS drop in Ashlands did it for me. I just took no pleasure in endless waves of fiery mooks in a slideshow format.

  • magic_lobster_party@fedia.io
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    9 days ago

    Some other games that come to my mind:

    • Talos Principle, Serious Sam (Croatia)
    • Ori, No Rest for the Wicked (Austria)
    • Deep Rock Galactic (Denmark)
    • Ultrakill (Finland)
    • Horizon (Netherlands)
  • drunkosaurus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    How could you forget the Witcher series? Witcher 3 is an amazing RPG and it’s from Poland.

    Edit: Techland is also a fully Polish publisher and developer, with games like Call of Juarez, Dead Island, and Dying Light 1 and 2. Especially the latter, a very well made FPS/parkour/melee zombie hunter, it still gets major updates and new content to this day.

    S.T.A.L.K.E.R series! Great FPS games made in Ukraine (and partly in Poland since the war started). STALKER 2 was released last December, it’s a bit rough around the edges still, performance wise, but it’s being worked on. There is an enjoyable game there already and it’s only getting better.

    • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      9 days ago

      Post wasn’t mine, but as a side note I really hope that by now everyone knows that the Witcher is from Poland. I even went to the Witcher bar in Krakow once, that was nice!